Naruto: Vampire Knights
by Gin Yuri
Summary: Sakura is a student at Cross Academy; a school where humans and vampires coexist peacefully. She has unwittingly caught the attention of night student Sasuke, but Naruto's hatred for their kind rivals only his conviction to save Sakura from them.
1. Prologue: Angel in the Snow

_That night . . . _

Large cinders of snow dashed and flurried about her on the breath of the night wind, hampering the little girl's efforts to peer through the sheets of swirling powder around her. Her bright hazel eyes were wide with fear, for any beauty that the sudden storm could have provided her was overridden by the terror that struck at the knowledge she was lost. Her small boots trudged through the piling snow until she could move her legs no more.

_It's cold . . ._

Exhausted from wandering, and shivering despite a thick winter coat, the child plopped down in a heap of white. She huddled there in silence for an endless time, and still the blizzard did not let up, and she was no more aware of what would happen to her. Her uncovered pink hair whipped in strands around her face. Streaks of frozen tears on her cheeks glistened in the moonlight, for that light and the wind seemed to be the only forces able to steal through the weather.

Just before she started to believe she would never be free of the loud tempest and stinging snow, a dark figure suddenly silhouetted itself against the unseen backdrop ahead of her. It was a very tall person, the girl realized, and she knew immediately it wasn't someone familiar. She squeezed her eyes shut. Maybe if she did that, the person would disappear. But she wasn't so lucky.

Over the whistling wind she heard the unwelcome sound of crunching footsteps approaching, which made her open her eyes again. She stared up at the man who now stood only a few feet before her. He appeared still taller now that he was close, and his face was not kind. In fact, there was something very wrong with it.

That red glint in his eyes wasn't normal, nor was the way he looked at her with that famished, gaunt expression. The girl's own widened eyes let a fresh stream of tears as that man parted his lips to lick them, revealing a set of yellowed teeth that were too long to be normal.

"Are you lost," he hissed, "little girl?"

He opened his mouth to hiss again, giving her a better view of his sharp fangs. They captivated her as the man took a few shuffling steps forward. If she had been a little bit older she might have known what exactly it was that now snarled at her with blank and hungry eyes, but the word _vampire_ did not come to her mind.

"If you're lost, then," he continued calmly, "I should drink your blood."

He lunged at her.

Her mittened hands rose to cover her small face, as if they proved some sort of protection from the attack. But she felt large hands grab at her arm and head, gripping her too tightly, and his snarling face lowered, and then miraculously, she was released. The man's head was in the hands of someone much smaller than himself. No wait – why was he slumped like that? There was so much blood . . . she realized that the smaller person's hand had gone right through his skull. It had come out the other side. There it was, doused in deep crimson as the person withdrew it, letting the body silently drop in a crumpled heap on the snow.

The boy paused for a minute, glaring down at the man's motionless body.

"You're a disgrace to us all," he said softly.

This new person was young, maybe only a few years older than she was. A kid, really. His skin was almost as white as the snow, and was offset by jet black, tousled hair. His chalk blue coat and white scarf were now splattered red.

She watched as he raised his blood-stained hand to his lips, parting them slightly to lick a blood-soaked finger. When he turned to her with bright, burning red eyes and a stunningly perfect face, she couldn't help but stare. He was simply beautiful.

He knelt down before her and held out his other, clean hand. His eyes faded like coals to a dark onyx as he looked kindly down at her.

"Are you okay?"

She flinched away at first, but his face was gentle and he appeared sincere. She still wasn't brave enough to find her voice.

The boy looked around for a moment, and turned back to the girl with a small smile.

"I can't leave you out here. Come on, let me get you somewhere warm, okay? I know a place nearby"

Her nod was almost indiscernible, but she found herself contently taking his larger bare hand in her small mittened one, and letting him lead her away amidst the blizzard. She didn't think about where they were headed. Her gaze was set fixed on her rescuer as he headed to the nearest place he knew was safe.


	2. Chapter 1: Cross Academy

"Don't push!"

"Hurry up and move it!"

"Okay, okay, everybody move back please! Its curfew time, go back to your dorms!"

The relentless crowd of fangirls continued to shove forward into the prefect of Cross Academy, a pink haired beauty with bright green eyes and a voice loud enough to carry across the mass of skirts and smiles. It was the daily ritual for the girls of the Sun Dorm to gather there at dusk – to catch a glimpse at the night class as they left their own dorms for their evening classes.

Cross Academy was a prestigious private school established deep in the Fire Country, by a woman named Cross Tsunade. Its students were divided into two groups, the day class and the night class. These classes shared the school facilities in rotation, but when they changed in the evening, it was always fangirl chaos.

This was because all the night class students were all completely gorgeous.

"Don't get so bossy just because you're a prefect!"

There was a creak from behind her.

"Look, the gate's opening!"

Sakura groaned and continued to push against the tide of girls in their day class navy blue uniforms as the large Moon Dorm gate began to open. Yes, the whole lot of them had faces that would put any model to shame. They were graceful, suave, charming, and captivating. But Sakura knew something about the night class that the others didn't know; the reason the night class was so beautiful, the reason they slept all day, was because they were vampires.

The gate opened and the shrill of dozens of female voices pierced the air.

"Get back, please!" _Ugh, I didn't get them away in time again . . ._

Sakura's efforts proved fruitless as the girls managed to push past her and congregated around the night class boys as they passed through the gate. They were all stunning in their white uniforms, standing tall and beautiful as some smiled, others flirted, yet most ignored the girls around them. The night class girls were similarly ogled by the day boys, but their beauty and snotty airs served as a deterrent to all but those who were either very bold or very stupid. The boys tended be content with watching from a distance, but the girls would flock about the courtyard like their lives depended on catching a glimpse of any night class male.

But for Sakura, there was one white-dressed student that stood out above the rest; the boy who had saved her life one night long ago, when a lone vampire had attacked her as a child. That boy became her friend when Tsunade took her in, and was now dorm leader of the night class. He was, of course, a vampire as well.

"Good morning, ladies! Still as pretty as ever I see!" A different night class boy called out, waving at the flock of girls around him.

_Morning, huh?_

"Oh, Kiba-kun!"

"We've missed you, Kiba-senpai!"

"I could hear you girls from inside!" the heartthrob cooed back at them, "You all look adorable today!"

Kiba was one of the favorites, the kind of guy who flirted and adored every second he was in the limelight. Ruffled brown hair, boyish features and wide smile made him a magnet for the girls. His piercing black gaze happily swept over the crowd, pausing on Sakura for only an instant before he turned back to his adamant admirers.

"Kiba . . ." warned the boy who walked beside him. He was taller than most of the other boys, with flowing black hair, stunning silver eyes and a sharp attitude to boot. Not being one to enjoy the adoration of human girls, Hyuuga Neji had a glare that could send the bravest of girls packing. But he liked to reserve that leer for people he particularly disliked. Like now, a dull and bored expression usually graced his beautiful features as he gazed upon the crowd.

"It's okay, Hyuuga," Kiba stage-whispered loudly, "you're popular, too!"

As if on cue, several female voices called out both their names.

Kiba flashed a signature toothy grin and pointed the group of girls, who proceeded to shriek and faint on the spot. Sakura, watching this interaction, shook her head in shame for all of her sex. Was it really necessary for them to _scream_?

But her thoughts were scattered as a certain boy made his way towards her. She felt her breath hitch in her throat, and her heart began to race uncontrollably. It was her savior, her crush, the boy who was never far from her thoughts and who inexplicably seemed to want her company.

At that moment, a sharp female elbow shoved into Sakura's back, pushing her forward to the ground. Her arm was caught quickly before she fell, and for a brief moment she looked straight up into those striking black eyes of Uchiha Sasuke.

Sakura's eyes widened as she fought to find her voice.

"Are you okay, Sakura-chan?" His melodic voice always sent shivers down her spine.

Blushing furiously, she noticed that several other girls in the area were glaring at her close contact with the stunningly handsome dorm leader. Even some of the night class had turned to watch.

"Ano- gomenasai, Sasuke-senpai! I'm just fine." She tried to take a step back, but realized he was still gently holding onto her arm. She froze.

"Thank you for all your hard work," he said kindly, "But, I wish you wouldn't address me so formally, Sakura-chan. It makes me sad."

She gulped and met his gaze. His long black bangs framed a beautiful pale face, perfect dark eyes, delicious looking full lips . . . but hidden beneath them, she knew, lay a deadly set of fangs.

Suddenly Sasuke's hand was unceremoniously slapped away as a figure stepped in between them. Sakura looked up to see the other prefect of Cross Academy, the other orphan that Tsunade had taken in, and Sakura's best friend - Uzumaki Naruto.

Naruto was glaring daggers at the other boy. "Class is starting, Uchiha-_senpai_," he said threateningly. His voice was almost a hiss.

She was used to this behavior of his. Naruto, who was usually a kind and friendly person, had always hated vampires, and got very protective of Sakura whenever they were around the night class. She looked up at Sasuke apologetically, but the boy just shrugged him off with a chuckle.

"You're scaring me, Mr. Prefect," he cooed, and he turned to leave.

The two watched him gracefully walk away as he joined the flow of the night class to the school building. Several other white-dressed students immediately collected around him, like body guards around a celebrity.

A smiling day class brunette bravely stepped in Sasuke's path, gripping a large red rose with a pink ribbon around it. The vampires stopped and looked down at her, mostly with bored expectancy.

"Sasuke-senpai!" she said weakly, "Would – would you accept this?"

She held the rose out to Sasuke, who took it and gave her a kind smile in return.

"Thank you," he said simply, and he led the group past her. The throng of vampires entered the academic building and disappeared as the door slammed behind them. The courtyard was alive with the humming over dozens of whispered conversations, mostly over the brave girl who dared to give _Uchiha Sasuke_ a flower.

"Sakura-chan," began Naruto, as they watched the crowd slowly begin to disperse, "It's none of my business how much you suck up to Sasuke. But you do know the rules, right?"

She ignored him as she watched the brunette and a friend run giggling past her, both ecstatic at her courage.

"I know the rules," she said finally, "I know they're different from us."

A hand was suddenly placed on Sakura's arm and she was roughly twirled around to face a short angry blonde in the blue uniform, flanked by several other girls with matching sour faces.

Ino was a loud, blonde explosion of a girl who was sometimes more of a rival than a friend. She had a tendency to imagine that she and Sakura were in a constant competition; for grades, for friends, for boys, or whatever her fancy happened to be that week. It was a confusing relationship at best, and sometimes Sakura wouldn't know which Ino she was seeing – friend or foe – until the girl opened her mouth.

At the moment, her hands were on her hips and her foot tapped mercilessly on the ground. She blew a tuft of hair out of her face, and Sakura vaguely wondered how long she had been standing there.

"Well?" she barked, glaring daggers at Sakura.

_Definitely a foe today,_ Sakura thought dryly.

A small crowd of girls had now gathered behind the blonde, looking equally as upset.

"Well, what?" asked Naruto, coming to Sakura's defense. Ino's confidence visibly faltered at the sight of him. She stuck her nose up him and turned back to the pink haired prefect.

"What I mean is, what did Sasuke-kun want with you, huh?"

Sakura flinched at her angry voice, but she wasn't given the chance to respond.

"Sakura's conversations are none of your business, Ino-chan. Now I _believe_, it's past curfew."

"But –"

"No. Please get back to your dorm."

She scoffed at him. "I think _I_ have a right to know –"

"_All_ of you, get back to your dorms _now_!" he roared, causing the entire throng of girls to shriek simultaneously and scurry off. It was no mystery why they didn't trip over themselves to get to Naruto like they did with some of the other boys. As cute as he was, his temper and insanely loud shout were truly intimidating. Even Sakura cringed at the outburst.

The courtyard soon emptied, leaving the two prefects alone in the silent tide of the darkening sky. A cool breeze picked up as they began to walk their nightly route around the campus. Naruto glared at three girls who were lingering behind a stone column in the shadows. Once they realized they were discovered, they immediately ran off giggling towards the dormitories.

Naruto shook his head in mock disgust and ran a hand through his golden, unruly hair.

"I don't think I'll ever understand you girls. Swooning over those monsters, like they're something to be desired . . ."

"Hey, don't go acting all high and mighty on me! You're the one who was late, which is why we didn't get them back in time!"

She gave him a light punch on the shoulder. He clutched it with feigned injury.

"Ow! Sakura-chaaan . . ." he moaned pitifully, before breaking into a wide smile.

She laughed at his performance, and they walked on in comfortable silence for a few minutes.

The memory of the sun was erasing itself from the cerulean sky, as several brave stars began to peek out above them. The first path they took each night was a familiar one, which encompassed the entire Academy.

Situated at the lip of an oceanside cliff and with only a few miles of forest separating it from the nearest town, Cross Academy was a renovated castle of white stone, a magnificently big collection of buildings and courtyards. It had soaring towers and turrets tipped blue, large high-ceilinged halls and ballrooms, and enough room to host a few hundred students. Winding cobblestone paths led through several beautiful courtyards littered with stone statues and fountains among the foliage.

They soon entered Sakura's favorite courtyard, the one with a man-made pond directly in the center and a small footbridge arcing across it. Small clusters of magenta and yellow wildflowers grew about, which seemed never to lose their bright color, even in the darkest times of night. It was while they walked though this area that Naruto stopped abruptly, his eyes fixed on a spot in the shadows across the bridge.

Sakura followed his gaze but didn't see anything.

"What is it, Naruto?" she asked anxiously. His eyes narrowed, but he stood straight again and smiled apologetically.

"Just thought I saw something in the shadow," he explained, "I think I was just imagining it. At any rate, they're gone now."

"They?"

"I'm pretty sure it was two vampires. But, like I said, nothing's there."

She noticed his empty hand withdraw from the inside of his uniform, where he usually kept his gun. "Bloody Rose," it had etched on it in script, and it was never far from Naruto's side. It came with the territory of one whose parents were killed by vampires. That was the reason Naruto hated them, after all. That was the reason he would never trust them around Sakura.

Sakura simply pulled out her flashlight, making a face at Naruto as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. She shone it over in the direction he had been looking. Nothing.

"Don't you feel silly," she murmured, although an uneasy feeling settled in her stomach. It wasn't like Naruto to be wrong about things like this. "It was probably just a few students skipping their first class."

Naruto shrugged his shoulders in response.

"Sneaky bloodsuckers," he muttered.

A soft male voice behind them made the two prefects jump in surprise.

"You wouldn't be talking about us, would you?"

They whirled around to see two students of the oldest class, dressed in white uniforms and standing at the foot of the bridge. One female, one male.

The two, standing side by side, looked almost too beautiful to exist. They could have been twins, what with their gorgeous pale complexions, placid expressions, and rings under eyes which were blacker than night. The girl had long, flowing black locks that reached almost to her waist, and the boy's own raven hair was straight and fell just past his shoulders. With the soft moonlight illuminating their features, the sight of them took Sakura's breath away.

Naruto growled under his breath.

Sakura forced herself out of the stupor she was in to remember her place, since Naruto clearly wasn't saying a word.

"Itachi-senpai, Kurenai-senpai," she said anxiously.

Kurenai solemnly nodded to them both, but Itachi's dark eyes held Sakura's and she shivered noticeably. There was something she really didn't like in that intense stare, as if he were examining her like a piece of meat. Only, with this boy, it wasn't just an expression.

"Hello, Sakura-san, Uzumaki-san," Itachi said, his voice no more than a whisper. His eyes remained locked on Sakura.

If there were any two people she was afraid of most out of the night class, it had to be these two. They were the oldest vampires at the school, and were just about at that time when they stop aging. Or, maybe they had looked like that for years. It was hard to tell with vampires, since they reached about the age of 18 and then matured very slowly from there. But it wasn't their age that made them dangerous. No, it was the starved, almost dead looks in their eyes, their too-perfect faces always somber and still, the way that even the other vampires seemed to shy away in their presence. Well, all of them but Sasuke, Itachi's younger brother. They may have been siblings, but their personalities were completely different.

Sakura looked over at Naruto, whose hand was back in his uniform, most likely fingering his silver gun.

"What are you two doing out here?" he said angrily.

Kurenai glanced lazily at her partner, who finally took his mesmerizing eyes from Sakura to look at the boy.

"As far as I'm aware," he began politely, "It's not against school policy that we night students wander the campus after dusk."

"You know very well that you're only allowed near the academic grounds," Naruto snapped, "This courtyard is off-limits. It's too close to the Sun dorms."

That last sentence rang through the air like a clear reminder to the pair – _We know what you're capable of._

Itachi raised an eyebrow in obviously feigned surprise.

"Is that so?" he said evenly, "My mistake. We'll be on our way. "

They turned to leave, with Itachi's hand resting on the small of the woman's back. Sakura shivered as she watched them disappear towards the class buildings.

"Ugh," Naruto snorted, "Did you see the marks on her neck? It's disgusting, what they do. Even to each other."

Sakura fiddled with her prefect's armband and made a small sound that she hoped sounded like an agreement. Naruto frowned but didn't bring the subject up again.

The rest of the night went on smoothly. They finished their laps around the campus until the night students had returned to their dorms for the night, and then the prefects made another round before retiring.

It was past three when Sakura finally plopped down on her bed, the two vampires stuck on her mind. She thought about the bite marks on the girl Kurenai, she thought about Naruto's revulsion to the act of it.

Yes, the thought of vampires hurting a person was horrible, but she couldn't deny that there was something fascinating about what they did. What was the attraction of drinking someone's blood? Did they feel compelled to do it out of hatred for humans, as a way of punishing them? Or was it just a primal desire that drove them to it?

But whatever the cause for their urge, she was happy for the invention that allowed a shaky peace to arise between vampires and humans. A small red pill had been created by scientists only a few years ago, and was perfected until it held the exact taste and substance of human blood. It was designed to allow vampires to live among humans without harming them. The pill could be swallowed whole to give the vampire the sustenance it needed, but most of them liked to drop it in water to at least give the illusion of drinking liquid blood. It was these pills that allowed Cross Academy to exist, while keeping the humans safe at night. But, of course, Tsunade always feared a slip up. That's why she had prefects patrolling at night. Just in case.

Sakura drifted to sleep with a vision of the courtyard drifting in her thoughts. She dreamt of tripping on the footbridge, and Sasuke, holding his hand out to help her up.


End file.
